Title: Java Curriculum Evolution and Ignite
Course: CPS 161: An Intro to Programming with Java - DL MM MASTER

Java Curriculum and Ignite

IGNITE(Intentionally Growing New Information Technology Employees) is a grant project that WCC won through the DOL (Department of Labor) that includes the CIS/CPS Java Curriculum, our Linux Program, and a few other thing.

I want to share what has happened in the Java Curriculum area as it has evolved in the DL/MM direction:

- Approach Evolution
- Characteristics of the Current Curriculum
- IGNITE involvement in the overall Curriculum Development

Enrollment Patterns as the Appproach Evolved

Today we are tapping into a set of new students who wouldn't have been able to take our classes 3 years ago.

Approach Evolution:

- In 2011, the classes were very tradional lecture classes. I didn't think that these classes were good candidates for an online approach for the following reasons:
  - How do you provide help to students who are stuck and need some support in debugging their program.
  - I sometimes find it difficult to describe something without drawing pictures on a white board where I can dynamically draw something and point to things.
  - In the advanced classes, I had a policy of having the last assignment be a project of the student's own choosing. The projects were then presented on the last day of classes and students participated in evaluating each other's project.
  - Traditional lecture classes can provide opportunities for Q & A times where students can get help as questions come up.
- However, I would often have students who missed a class for some good reason (business trip, kid sick, etc.) and they would miss some real critical lecture. This was then hard to recover from, because the textbooks available to me in the more advanced classes often didn't contain some of the key information that I wanted the students to know.
- In Fall 2012, I started recording my live lectures and offering the class online for students who couldn't make it to class.
  - Panopto software did the recording, and the online recording became available to students minutes after finishing the live recording.
  - I found for some white board solutions on my computer screen.
  - I started using Goto-Meeting software when it was necessary to do some remote debugging of student problems.
- In mid-2013 the IGNITE program came along and wanted to add the Java Curriculum to its offerings. For the past year we have been evolving and enhancing the approach.

Characteristics of the current Curriculum

- DL Option: Students can take the class as DL class because all of the lectures and assignments can be done online.
- MM Option: Some students who might succeed in a normal class will have trouble with a DL class because: they need more help, more discipline to stay on track, or just miss the normal class room setting. In this setting we have more like a "Flipped class" ... come to school to do homework, go home to listen to lectures.
- MM-Bribe - To encourage students who would benefit from the MM approach, I bribe them with points on their grade.
- Any DL or MM student can get help by showing up to any of the MM sections that I have scheduled (i.e. it doesn't have to be the class that they are officially enrolled in).
- We also provide "Group Study" sessions where students can get help from a "trained facilitator".
- All assignments contain a "Class Participation" portion. Class participation consists of Discussion board postings that can be any of the following: (Question, Answer, Lecture Notes Sharing, Discovery Sharing).
- The advanced classes all have a project of their own choosing. We have "Class Presentations" of their projects using JING.

IGNITE involvement in the overall curriculum development

- Because of the wording of the Grant, we had to make some changes.
- The "Live lecture recordings" needed to be redone with smaller logical modules done in Camtasia.
- Best practices ... my images and styles had to change.
- Requirement for Interactive Learning.
- Requirement to be on a standard platform (i.e. blackboard not aardvark).
- Conflict: What I thought would happen was that I could continue teaching the courses in my favorite tool aardvark. Meanwhile the assignments would be also put into blackboard if another teacher taught any of the Java Curriculum courses they would use the blackboard version of the assignments.
- Diane Fine was running IGNITE at the time and she knew that I wanted to stay in Aardvark, and she figured she could rework the "blackboard version" of the curriculum any way she wanted. She held meetings that I was not invited to where she was working on the "blackboard version" of the java curriculum .... changing anything she felt like changing. Useless Interactive Learning exercises were added to satisfy the Grant requirements.
- Meeting(March 2014?)- I asked Dave Fitzpatrick to help in addressing this issue and a meeting was held. The issue was basically that I was losing control over what was being taught in the courses I had developed. The bottom line was who had the final say in what was taught in the Java curriculum.
- Shortly after the meeting Diane left the project, and a new person was hired to fill her spot. Ever since then we have gone from continual conflict to everyone being on the same team.
- Bottom line is we will have one unified curriculum in blackboard. The interactive learning exercises are designed to hit useful "pain points" in the course instead of just being excuses to have interactive learning.